In the More Bookmarks submod, play as House Darklyn during the Defiance of Duskendale. I hope for you Barristan doesn't succeed; If he does you're pretty much doomed
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One theory that I quite like is the one that the Seven were more powerful than they are now, hence why the Andals were able to sail and conquer most of Westeros without dragons or any other biological weapons. But the Seven either lost contact with the world or turned away from it when Andalos was lost to the Valyrians.
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Interesting, or that the Andals had better sailing technology and came in en mass, attacking weak and divided First Men kingdoms who refused to see the Andal threat until they became too powerful to ignore?
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Likely, but the Andals were just as divided as the First Men and were fighting on foreign land, even just the fact they were able to take all lands behind the Neck is astounding, so its still possible.
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The Normans (For example) conquered England, and while the nobility pretty much became Norman/French, the average joe remained Anglo-Saxon (With bits and pieces of Norman/French culture entering theirs). Meanwhile, the Andals managed to make their language, culture and religion the standard of nearly everyone south of the Neck. Four possibilities :
- The Seven did some miracle and turned lots of people into Andals after the conquest (Which is ridiculous)
- The Andals know about the culture conversion cheat (Which is ridiculous)
- The First Men kingdoms had really small populations (Which is ridiculous, considering they managed to fight back)
- The final possibility is that the Andals were literally millions, or at least enough to assimilate the first men population in their kingdoms (It's possible only the warriors crossed the sea and conquered the place, the rest of the Andal population waiting for the fighting to be over)
That reminds me : Who lives in Andalos right now? Is it just empty? Wasn't there a thing about Pentoshis having more Andal blood then Valyrian because they intermarried with the local population?
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You try to make sense of G(u)RRMs very lazy, basic and naive worldbuilding. Don't. It's fruitless.
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GRRM has built a pretty detailed and in depth world to be honest, calling it basic is just plainly not true
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It is basic. It just is. Nothing is truly developed, nothing is truly fleshed out, and what in some part is, well, there it took decades to take it to not even so high level of complexion. All of Westeros speaks the same language. All of Westeros is basically culturally uniform save for Dorne and some tiny little differences between broadly understood North and as broadly understood South. Religion is underdeveloped and way too simple to be realistic. Where are schisms, where are heresies, what do the holy books contain, we don't know about any of this. Only thing that is somewhat developed is strictly political history.
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Some areas they didn't actually conquer, they married into the Rock, Reach and Stormlands because the Kings realized that was better then fighting them.
Onl the Iron islands, Riverlands and Vale seem to have actually been properly conquered.
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And most of those things you listed would only hinder the story he planned out, multiple languages would achieve nothing as you would then need a permanent translator so characters knew what the hell was going on or you would just ignore the different languages on the assumption people on the same continent can understand it hence you have wasted time by adding all these languages as you are effectively ignoring that they exist anyway.
The cultural differences are definitely there between the northman, iron islanders, dornish, valyrians and then the andal descendants who make up the rest of Westeros.
Do you really care about the inner writing of the seven as a religion? In what way would that effect the story? In what way would that add to anything?
How would having a heresy add to the world? Have you ever watched a medieval political drama where heresy was a key part to the story and was actively used as a plot point? Why bother writing about a heresy if it doesn't add to the story, only a point in adding them if it adds something useful to the world.
Things that have been developed: Political history, dynasties and their families, wars, different continents, different religions and how they all perceive a similar event but change it based on their religion/culture, different cultures and their traditions, the magic of the world, the many locations etc etc etc
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As you say - story, story, story. What G(u)RRM basically did is that he took a very short, specific period of English history, modified it slightly - ever so slightly, names are even there, barely hidden, in oldest, most important elements of this quasi-worldbuilding, Stark = York, Lannister = Lancaster and so on - and decided to tell us a story. Story about characters, interactions between them, their dilemmas and personal problems, about past of their families, destiny of heroes and so on. Political drama smudged by some elements of shallow fantasy. World is secondary is Martin’s books and it shows. You ask how these things would enhance the story - like I give a damn. I’m not talking right now about plot of the ASoIaF, but about… Planetos let’s call this setting. It’s a shallow setting. It only works on most basic of levels. Nothing makes sense on deeper one. Continent of roughly South America’s size whole speaks same language and it has really basically the same culture, same technological level of advancement, same customs and laws. Differences are there, but they are shallow, or, better - they are provincial. They would be justified on a national level, on a level of realm size of... heh, go figure, England? Or Britain as an island. But this is fricking continent, and now it becomes unrealistic. Faith of the Seven has millions of adherents judging by its history and available statistics, yet it’s the same everywhere, no religion ever worked this way.
Same with chivalric culture of southern Andal Seven Kingdoms. It was a specific set of historical circumstances that occured during a specific, short, period of medieval European history that led to phenomenon that Martin is copying. Christian values, Germanic traditions. How the hell is this the same in Seven Kingdoms? It makes no sense.
Well, looking by dozens of Christian sects, stories of heresies, schisms and religious wars, it adds a lot. But whatever, MUH TYRION AND MUH CHARACTERS AND SO DEEP WORLD. What do I know.
Same with chivalric culture of southern Andal Seven Kingdoms. It was a specific set of historical circumstances that occured during a specific, short, period of medieval European history that led to phenomenon that Martin is copying. Christian values, Germanic traditions. How the hell is this the same in Seven Kingdoms? It makes no sense.
You come off as little bit… stupid, writing such things. “Do you really care about inner writing of the Christianity as a religion? In what way would that effect the story? In what way would that add to anything?”
Well, looking by dozens of Christian sects, stories of heresies, schisms and religious wars, it adds a lot. But whatever, MUH TYRION AND MUH CHARACTERS AND SO DEEP WORLD. What do I know.
Not counting Valyrians, who are obviously something else, they are almost the same. They speak same language, they have almost same names and surnames, they act the same, they follow the same laws and customs, they all adhere to aristocratic culture of the same kind, they do look the same. There are differences, like religious ones and so on, but they are shallow. It's like thay are not there. Only Dorne somehow stands out (it's quite obvious why - it's ONLY thing that Martin added to the combined map of England and Ireland that make up map of his OH SO ORIGINAL Westeros...).
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"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."
— Anton Chekhov
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But all of you do realize we are talking about Martin's worldbuilding here, not how he's supposed to write his books and his stories...?
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I made my post at about the same time as you made your third one, so I didn't see it before posting.
Besides, creating a world as realistic and as detailed as possible isn't and shouldn't be a point of any fantasy book. Their goal is to tell a good story. The setting is secondary in importance. Sure, if the author manages to do it and make it interesting, then it's even better. But most of the time it's really unnecessary and just makes the book worse by adding completely needless details which the writer won't even use, making them feel completely forced and uninteresting.
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Man thats an essay and a half. GRRM writes to make a story so why would he add in things that are not relevant to the world? Things that really do not make that much of a difference.
Its called a fantasy setting for a reason, hence you can have the same technological levels in the continent so things are a level playing field for your wars without one side clearly winning cause they have better <insert weapon here>
Would the world really be that much better by adding in arbitrary distinctions in languages or changes in a group of cultures who are all descended from the same ones?
As for the same customs and laws, they are all ruled by the same monarch so of course the laws and custom are the same (bar the Dornish obviously but there is lore reasons for that exception).
You come off like a bit of a dick. Does the inner writings of Christianity effect much? No it really doesn't, the big differences maybe at a push but the majority of the world follows the same basic ideas with minor pointless variations arbitrarily defined by average people who thought their view on religion was somehow better so they make their own sect. Would that make the world of ASOIAF better? Not really, not unless it was going to be used in the story at any point otherwise it has just been needlessly tacked on and achieves nothing.
As Moarice said with the example of Chekhov's gun and the point of GRRMs books, adding unnecessary detail does not achieve anything.
Also next time you write a post about you try and act like less of an self-righteous arse
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Do you have any ideas how difficult world building is let alone writting a story as good as ASOIAF's? going into needless and excessive detail beyond what the story reqires is a secondary luxery most writters don't have the time for especially when they write as slowly as GRRM due to all the plots and things been covered.
Also it's a fantasy you arn' supposed to overthink every damned thing
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Well, everyone pretty much came over en mass to avoid their inevitable fall and enslavement at the hands of the Valyrians. They became a pretty significant population in Andalos because the Rhoynar provided a buffer from the Valyrians. Judging from what the World of Ice and Fire provides, whole generations crossed over a prolonged period of time. So it's likely the warriors came first to conquer the Vale then the general population soon followed to populate the area and interbreed with the First Men to make the Andals the greater population.
Guys, this thread has gone way off topic by this point, it's nice to see support for GRRM's work but you are just wasting people's time when you post all these entries about it when the thread is about fun houses to play in the mod 
. I'm gonna attempt to un-derail it here by explaining that, as previously mentioned in passing, House Blackwood are a lot of fun because A: they have a rivalry with another house at the beginning B: they are decently strong, C: they have a pretty cool coat of arms, and D: they are the only old gods lord outside of the north, so you can try and convert westeros back to the old gods if you like, which is fun. (albeit a pain due to the increased revolt risk from the mod for religious conversion)
. I'm gonna attempt to un-derail it here by explaining that, as previously mentioned in passing, House Blackwood are a lot of fun because A: they have a rivalry with another house at the beginning B: they are decently strong, C: they have a pretty cool coat of arms, and D: they are the only old gods lord outside of the north, so you can try and convert westeros back to the old gods if you like, which is fun. (albeit a pain due to the increased revolt risk from the mod for religious conversion)
Skagosi should make for an interesting run, perhaps? My personal favourite is House Dayne, though. Being the Sword of the Morning and King of Westeros at the same time is just... boss.
Calling the world of ASOIAF "lazy and naive" because there is in-depth information you personally want to know more about is on the level of calling Memento's script "simple and insipid" because it can be understood in less than a handful viewings, or calling Sátántangó "short and rushed" because you managed to see it in one sitting.
Calling the world of ASOIAF "lazy and naive" because there is in-depth information you personally want to know more about is on the level of calling Memento's script "simple and insipid" because it can be understood in less than a handful viewings, or calling Sátántangó "short and rushed" because you managed to see it in one sitting.
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